


Bagel Pride

by Feynite



Series: Looking Glass Alternate Universe Madness [4]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bagel AU, F/M, Looking Glass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-06-01 16:49:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6528184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feynite/pseuds/Feynite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crossover prompts I get for Looking Glass characters as filtered through the lens of my Bagel AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lovely Wrong Bagel Lady

He’s going to do it.

He’s going to ask the Lovely Wrong Bagel Lady out.

Every morning, she comes into his shop, and glares at his menu. And then she orders coffee. Just coffee. Plain, which, possibly she has some kind of an objection to flavour? A weird aversion to it? Maybe it’s a Dalish cultural trait. He’s not sure. It would definitely explain her decision to open a Marcher Bagel shop, at least.

But yes, she orders coffee from him, even though he’s reasonably certain she sells coffee at her own establishment. And then she leaves and he gets to  _watch_  her leave, which is… probably inappropriate of him.

She’s so  _beautiful_ , though.

Not even in one of those perfect, magazine cover ways, either. It’s as if someone pieced together a collection of all of his favourite traits and put them into one person. One person with a very pretty voice. And a nice smile. And even a nice frown, which is getting a little strange of him, possibly.

So he’s going to ask her out.

Soon.

Today.

Because maybe… maybe she comes in and buys coffee from him because  _she_  wants to ask _him_  out?

Not that he would presume!

“I want to be your Maid of Honour,” Curiosity tells him, as they go about opening up the shop.

“It is  _one date_ ,” he says. “And that is not how it works. I have a best man, it is the bride who gets the Maid of Honour.”

“That is silly. You would have to make Haninan best man, and I am much better friends with you than he is,” Curiosity objects.

He sighs, and grips at his hair.

“Can we at least not plan the wedding before I even ask her out? She could say no,” he points out. Although she would probably look spectacular in a white dress. Nothing flashy, he doesn’t think. Simple. Elegant.

…Yes, definitely, this is going too far.

He shushes his friend-slash-business-partner, and when they finally get up and going he hears the bell on the door chime.

It’s her!

…

…It’s not her.

Oh.

Perhaps she’s not coming this morning.

Perhaps she’s not coming  _ever again._

Perhaps he missed his chance.

He tries not to deflate a bit when his first customer of the day orders a coffee and bagel with cream cheese dipping sauce on the side. Food is his passion, after all, and bringing actual flavour to the streets of Kirkwall is practically a mission of mercy at this point. And he knows where her shop is. Just across the street. He could always go and ask her out there. Unless that would be creepy?

He fetches the cream cheese from the case behind the register, and hears the bell chime again.

Oh!

There she is.

He swallows as he takes the customer’s payment, and she commences her usual routine of scowling at his menu. There’s a line between her brows, and her mouth twists sideways a little.

It’s difficult not to stare.

“Coffee again…?” he asks.

She looks at him.

“Yes, thank you,” she says.

He fills it up for her, careful to make sure the lid is on tight and the heat guard is in place, and then hands it to her. His cheeks are already burning. But he clears his throat and makes himself look her in the eye.

“Would you like to go to dinner with me?” he asks.

She blinks at him.

Her hand tightens around the coffee cup, a little; narrow fingers curling, and he wonders if he’s shocked her. If he’s maybe been inappropriate. He’s not wholly sure of the etiquette on asking customers out, he never thought it was something he would need to know. He always imagined that if he met someone he really liked it would be in a library. Some sort of beautiful librarian who was taken with his wit and intellect and wanted to talk about things with him.

He doesn’t even know what kind of things Lovely Wrong Bagel Lady is interested in. He has no idea what topics to bring up on their hypothetical date. She’s a fellow restaurant owner and entrepreneur, except everything she serves seems like sad food for people who have given up on life.

This is probably a terrible mistake.

“I would love to,” she tells him.

He blinks.

Reviews to make sure he heard that correctly.

She smiles at him, broadly, and his heart flips.

“Good!” he says. “Good, that is, that is fantastic. Um. I could take you tonight? Take you  _out_  tonight? I mean. Yes. If that’s not too forward? We could meet outside your shop, and go eat somewhere together?”

She nods, and then reaches into her jeans pocket and pulls out her phone.

“What’s your number?” she asks him.

He tells her, watching her fingers move to press it into her phone - they are exchanging numbers, she wanted to exchange numbers, even though they didn’t have to and she could have gone on the date with him first and then if she hated him she wouldn’t have had his number and she would have had an excuse not to call him - and she smiles at him again, warm and friendly maybe just a little bit giddy, too.

Oh.

Oh he likes her so much.

He’s going to have to think of a lot of interesting things to talk about for this date. Poetry? Would she like poetry? Local history? Philosophy?

She slips her phone back into her jeans - her fairly tight jeans - and then walks out of his shop, with a little parting wave.

…Yes. Conversation topics.

Just as soon as his brain starts working again.


	2. First Date

He shows up with flowers.

Actual flowers.

Pretty ones, even. Purple and bell-shaped, with rippling petals that look very soft to her eye. He’s dressed in white, with a fur-lined jacket that’s got silvery lining in it, and skinny jeans showing off the frankly ridiculous beauty of his legs.

Her mouth is watering.

Shit.

Shit.

When she finally remembers how her legs work and walks up to him, he hands her the flowers. His cheeks pink. So do the tips of his ears.

Hot Wrong Bagel Babe is a _sweetheart_ holy gods above how did this happen? 

“Hello,” he says.

“Hi,” she manages back.

They stand across from one another like idiots for several minutes.

For lack of anything else to do - and because it seems like the thing to do - she lifts the flowers and sniffs them. What are they? She thinks she knows. Not begonias. No. Something with a ‘g’…

“Gloxinia?” she asks.

He colours a little more, and nods.

 _Pretty_ , she thinks. The flowers are nice too.

It seems almost a shame to take him to the Hanged Man. And it’s probably safe to say that plan ‘one night stand’ has just died an ignoble but probably well-deserved death. There’s no way sleeping with him is going to get him out of her system.

She should probably let him down gently at the end of the evening.

He makes _Orlesian bagels._

He’s… probably a few years younger than her.

Those are both completely valid reasons not to start a relationship with somebody.

Completely.

…Okay, maybe only the first one is.

But it still is!

He swallows, and clears his throat - the pale skin on his throat, what even is up with it, why is _his throat_  beautiful - and then offers her his arm. She shifts the flowers to one hand, and accepts it. The material of his jacket is synthetic and smooth.

He grins at her.

It’s only when they’re halfway down the street that her brain fires up again and she realizes she’s going to be walking into the Hanged Man on the arm of her new rival baker, carrying a bouquet of purple flowers and probably staring at him all dreamy-eyed.

Shit.

“Do you know a lot about flowers?” Pride blurts at her, all of a sudden.

His ridiculous hair whips a bit as he turns to look at her, as if this is a critical question somehow.

“Um… a little?” she replies.

“Oh. Well, I only know a little about them myself. More cultural information than practical knowledge. I have a few plants in my apartment, though. Mostly ferns. They haven’t died yet. We’ll see how they do through winter, though,” he says, all in a rush. Then he colours again. “I will, I mean. I’ll see how they do. And Curiosity, too, and probably Haninan. Not necessarily you. Or, you could see too. If you were interested. Then. In winter. Whether or not they died.”

She blinks at him.

Very slowly, he looks away, and stares at the ground at the sky as if he kind of wants it to just summon up a tornado to twist him up and carry him away.

It’s possibly the most endearing thing she’s ever seen in her life.

She squeezes his elbow.

“I like ferns,” she says.

What.

Oh Creators, it’s _contagious._

He lets out a breath, though, and smiles at her again.

They end up talking about ferns all the way to the Hanged Man. Actually interesting things, too, about the plants themselves and then about the Kirkwall Fern Society, which she didn’t know existed, but which apparently has a colourful history that includes several riots and one unsolved murder.

It’s - unexpectedly - engrossing enough that she actually forgets she’s being escorted into the Hanged Man carrying flowers and looking like a besotted idiot until long after they’ve gotten a table.


	3. The Language of Flowers

On their second date, Pride shows up with a bouquet of varied carnations, and a nervous smile.

On their third date, he gives her a slender, long-stemmed handful of lavender roses.

On their fourth date, it’s roses again. But coral ones. He blushes a lot before he hands them to her.

On their fifth date, it’s blue violets, in a little pot. She sets them into the one decent windowsill in her apartment, and manages to keep them alive for an admirable length of time.

And then she goes and googles flower meanings.

When she’s finished, she has to go and scream into a pillow for a while, because it’s frankly just _not fair_  of the universe to have made him. It isn’t. It really isn’t.

He shouldn’t be allowed.

He gave her flowers that meant _love at first sight_  on their _first date,_  and there’s no chance he didn’t realize what they meant. No way. The selections are just too deliberate and unorthodox for that.

Shit.

Her stomach flips and fills with warm butterflies. After a while she picks her phone back up, and starts scrolling through the list. When she finds what she’s looking for, she purses her lips, and nods to herself.

Somehow she’s going to have to cover his entire apartment in white heather.


	4. White Heather

Actually _covering_  Pride’s apartment in white heather is an endeavour, to say the least. 

She has to get Curiosity to let her in, for starters. Which is… not a difficult sell. Pride’s best friend is actually very enthusiastic about the whole idea, once she explains it. And as it turns out, the local florist has a very good supplier, so it only takes her a week to get more white heather than she’s ever seen before in her life.

Haninan lets them use his car to transport the stuff. Cassandra and Cole both volunteer to help carry it, too. It’s only halfway through draping it all over Pride’s crisp, modernist furnishings that she pauses to consider whether or not this is actually a terrible idea.

But it probably is, she suddenly thinks.

It’s a lot of plants. Plants wither. They die. They have to be disposed of. However tricky it was to get everyone to bring all the heather up, eventually it’ll need to be carried back out again, too.

Some kind of tasteful centerpiece probably would have made more sense.

Or a bouquet.

…This was a terrible idea. His entire apartment is going to reek of heather. It already does! She doesn’t even know if he _likes_ heather. And it’s too late to turn back now, with everyone still shoving it everywhere. In Pride’s apartment.

Cole pauses, and shifts the armload he’s carrying so he can gently pat her on the shoulder.

“It will be alright,” he assures her.

No it won’t, Cole. She’s conscripted her friends into wrecking her boyfriend’s apartment. She’s _lost her mind._

 _“_ Of course,” is what she manages to get out of her mouth, though.

Still. By the time Pride’s car pulls into the parking lot outside, she’s mentally rehearsing her apologies. Haninan leans out of the window, and then gestures frantically towards Cassandra, Curiosity, and Cole.

“Quickly, we’ll take the stairs down!” he says.

“But I want to see the look on his face!” Curiosity bemoans.

“I know! We will crouch on the balcony! You can see the doorway from there,” Cassandra suggests.

Dammit, Cassandra.

But her friend almost immediately shakes her head.

“No, that would be inappropriate! Never mind. Stairs it is!”

She’s almost tempted to stop them, but any effort dies in her throat until they’ve already hurried out of the door; Haninan all but tugging Curiosity along. Cole gives her another small smile before he closes it shut behind him.

Leaving her standing there.

In Pride’s apartment.

With all the heather, which was a bad idea.

After a few minutes, she hears the sound of footsteps in the hall. The key turning in the latch. She gives serious consideration to jumping out of the nearest window. There’s a good ledge. She could probably hang outside of it until he went into the bathroom, or something, and then sneak out.

Or just climb down the side of the building.

But then the door opens, and he’s there.

Dressed in his fur-trimmed coat, and silver jeans, with crystal toggles in his hair, and _why_  does he look _good_  when he actually looks _ridiculous?_

He goes stock still.

So does she.

Shit.

“Uh. Hey,” she manages. Watching as his eyes widen, taking in the apartment, and the heather. The lots and lots of heather. On every available surface, really. And some parts of the floor. And draped perilously over some of his lamps.

His expression turns from shock, to confusion, and then to a creeping sort of realization that almost seems to wash him away.

“Sorry,” she manages, clearing her throat. “I just… well. I looked up the flower meanings, and I had an idea. It’s possible I overdid it a little.”

Pride swallows, and blinks rapidly a few times. His face flushes.

“You…” he trails off. “You covered my apartment in white heather?”

They stand there awkwardly for several long seconds.

“I’ll clean it up!” she finally blurts.

He raises his hands, almost frantically.

“No!” he exclaims. “Do not touch it! This is - this is amazing!” 

She pauses, slowly shifting gears as she realizes the look on his face is not the dawning horror of having his home covered in unwelcome foliage, but a sort of awe-struck joy mingled with disbelief.

“I want your wishes to come true,” she tells him, carefully. 

He walks towards her. His steps are slow, but he doesn’t look away from her. Not even when his foot crunches over some of the floor heather. When he’s within reach, he lifts a hand, and cups her cheek.

“I wish to kiss you, if that is alright,” he says.

She almost has to laugh at how ‘alright’ that would be.

She gives him her answer by surging upwards and capturing his lips herself.


	5. Key Exchange

It’s a Wednesday when she finds herself unexpectedly roped into helping one of the Hawke/Amell horde - Beth? No, it’s a longer ‘b’ name. Bellamy? Brittany? Something like that; there are nine billion people in that family and all of them are attractive and most of them are mages - carry about ten thousand crates full of Feast Day decorations to her parents’ house.

She’s not the only one. Apparently one of the male Hawke/Amells broke his arm trying to impress a dog, or something, so their cousin had to drive him to the emergency room, immediately rendering the vehicle intended for ferrying the decorations unavailable for use.

Long and short of it - Varric asks anyone with working arms and legs who would be willing to hold boxes and ride public transport to help carry stuff up to the estate, and, well. She has those things. And it’s not like she’s got anything planned for tonight. Varric himself takes as much as he can in his little dwarven mini, suped up for speeds that he never actually gets to use in the city, but damn if he doesn’t love that ridiculous thing. Despite the fact that it only has two seats and fits maybe three boxes, total.

That leaves her riding the bus with Bellamy, Merrill, Isabela, and Bull, who’s got two crates slung under his arms and a set of tinsel artfully strewn over his horns.

Bellamy keeps thanking everyone, up until Isabela literally coos at her and pets her cheek, and finally gets her to stop.

Halfway to their first stop, Merrill starts adding dangling golden balls to the tinsel on Bull’s head.

At their second stop, Isabela produces another swath of tinsel and Bull obligingly tilts so she can arrange it over his shoulders like a fabulous, silvery boa. 

By the time they arrive, Bull is wearing roughly half of the decorations. He makes his way very carefully off of the bus, while she takes a picture and sends it off to Dorian, because she’s a good friend.

The Hawke/Amell’s butler - because these people have a _butler_ , and yet, she is sort of friends with them, somehow - helps take most of the things inside, and then Bellamy insists everyone stay for cider.

By the time she gets home it’s dark and cold as hell. She gets the last bus back, barely making it, and reaches her apartment.

For two seconds, when she switches on the lights, she’s sincerely freaked out by the sudden revelation of a figure standing on her balcony.

Then she realizes it’s her boyfriend.

“Holy shit!” she swears, rushing over to open the door.

Pride’s freezing cold when she gets her hands on him, shaking and shivering. There are pretty white lights twinkling on her railing, and she notes, once she actually gets him inside, a metric ton of flowers everywhere. Some cold take away sitting on her counter, right next to Pride’s phone.

But most of her attention is consumed with her _stupid half-dead boyfriend._

 _“What the hell?_  Why are you on my balcony like a creeper? You’e not a creeper, why aren’t you warm and inside? Shit, you’re freezing! How long were you out there? Do I need to call an ambulance?” she asks, in a flurry of what is definitely not panic, as she pushes him onto the couch and starts burying him in blankets and books it into the bedroom to get the little space heater that will actually, reliably, heat up something in this apartment.

And body heat! She can do that. And then she can find out what brand of lunacy is going on here, although she can kind of guess, based on the evidence, and it makes her insides twist.

She finished plugging in the heater, and Pride catches her wrist.

“It’s alright,” he tells her.

He pushes back some of the blankets, and waves his fingers. The air around him immediately warms.

Oh yeah.

Magic.

“Why didn’t you do that outside?” she demands, a little more hotly than she meant to.

There’s _blue_  in his lips, she swears.

“I did,” he says. “B-but it occurred to me that you might not be back before morning, and I was trying to c-conserve energy and stay awake. So I c-couldn’t cast too much.”

Her eyes narrow.

“How long were you out there?” she asks.

He blinks.

“How late is it?”

“Nine thirty,” she informs him.

“…Three hours,” he admits, like it’s embarrassing.

 _Embarrassing._  Not ‘I nearly killed myself on your balcony’, no, it’s _embarrassing._  He’s slumped onto her couch in not nearly enough blankets, with the heater only just starting to chug away, shivering in one of his useless fashion statement sweaters while his coat hangs by the door, cold and disappointed and - and -

She hugs him.

He presses his frozen nose against her neck.

“I was going to s-surprise you,” he says.

Finding him dead on her balcony definitely would have been a fucking surprise.

“I guessed that,” is what she says, though.

“You s-said you didn’t have time to d-decorate, so I thought I would do it for you. After the h-heather.”

Once she’s got him warmed up enough to release her death clutch on him, she leans back a bit, and gives him another assessing once-over. He looks exhausted. Knowing him, he probably tried to climb down or something, and knowing her balcony, got stuck a quarter of the way down and just had to climb back up again.

Which begs the question of how he got in in the first place.

“I used m-magic to pick the lock,” he admits. “I didn’t realize it wouldn’t work on the balcony door.”

“Yeah, that would be owing to the inconsistency of building security,” she says. “I mean, I’m supposed to have mage proof locks on all exterior exits, but the juice wore off on the front door way before I ever moved in.”

Pride frowns.

“I was going to say, it is not safe. I should fix that,” he mutters to himself.

“Eh,” she replies. “Between the odds of me being burgled by a mage, and my mage boyfriend accidentally locking himself out, I’m thinking I’d be better off just taking the anti-magic wards off of the balcony and calling it a day.”

Pride doesn’t look exactly thrilled with her conclusions. But his teeth have stopped chattering, at least. And before he can start being an idiot about things, she leans and kisses him. And then kisses him again. Because he may have broken into her apartment and nearly killed himself, but hey, she broke into his apartment to drown everything in heather. And she has noticed that there is an awful lot of mistletoe scattered in amongst the decorations, thank you.

Besides which, as far as warming people up goes, there are a few possibilities that are worth considering.

But even though Pride returns her kisses with appreciative little sighs, it’s still pretty obvious he’s exhausted.

Eventually, she manages to get him into his spare pyjamas, and buries him under a bunch more blankets in her bed. He keeps telling her he’s fine now, but his eyelids are drooping and his little heating spells are getting less effective.

It’s early. But she climbs into bed with him anyway, and cuddles up to him, slipping his hands under her shirt - for warmth, of course - and cupping his ears with her palms. The tips still feel like tiny little icicles.

He sighs dramatically, subsiding at last.

“I am sorry,” he says.

“You didn’t actually freeze to death, so I’ll forgive you,” she decides.

He hums appreciatively, and then it’s not too long before he drifts off to sleep.

She stays awake for a long while, though.

Thinking.

And thinking.

She’s given people keys for lesser reasons. It doesn’t have to mean anything. And it would definitely stop her from having to worry about him breaking in or getting trapped outside. Not that she thinks he’s liable to make the same mistake twice, but still. That was not… she does _not_  like the idea of him… not being okay. 

But the truth is, she probably _does_  want it to mean something. Not a ‘I would prefer if you didn’t freeze to death’ kind of a something, but a ‘you’re always welcome here’ kind of a something. Because it’s Pride.

And he is.

So should she wait, she wonders? Pretend like the idea has nothing to do with any of this? How long would that take? A week? A month?

No, she’s not waiting a month.

She’s still turning the idea over in her head as she slips off to sleep.

Probably, she thinks, she should wait at least a little while.

 

~

 

The next morning, she wakes up feeling like it’s a million degrees in all the blankets, with Pride lying half outside of them all. The heating’s working, so the room’s warm enough. He looks healthy and content; drawing in deep, even breaths.

She gets up, and goes into the bathroom, and rattles around in her spare drawer until she finds what she’s looking for.

Then she goes back and wakes him up with a kiss.

His eyes flutter open like sleeping beauty. Actual Disney princess material, she thinks, and he looks at her and smiles.

And then remembers last night.

The smile slips off.

“Mistakes were made,” she says. “But here’s the deal. I… like having you here. Whenever you want to be here. I don’t like coming home to find you half frozen on the balcony, but coming home to find _you_  wasn’t, uh. Well. That part was pretty okay.”

Pride blinks.

She clears her throat, and gathers up his hand. Carefully, she presses the spare key into it.

“So. There. That’s, that’s for you.”

Pride looks at the key.

Then he looks at her.

“Move in with me,” he asks.

Wait.

Wait.

What?

“I just… what?” she asks.

Pride colours. He opens his mouth, and then closes it again.

“I am not quite awake. I meant… thank you,” he says, clearing his throat. “That means a lot. And I wish to reciprocate.”

Well, yeah, she guesses that’s kind of a big gesture to surprise someone with the morning after they’ve refrigerated their brain.

She leans in and steals another kiss.

“Good,” she decides.

Good.


	6. Nightmare

Pride stares at the wreckage.

Two shops lie in ruins. Crumbs are strewn throughout the streets. Half-eaten bagels remain clutched in the hands of skeletons; somehow eternally preserved, even as the fallen warriors rot slowly to dust. In the distance, a dragon roars. Blank-eyed figures, mouths wreathed in flame, wander the dark alleys of distant streets.

Blood pools at his feet, dripping from crumpled cream cheese packets.

A hand falls onto his shoulder.

His love looks at him with sad eyes. This, he thinks, was _his_  fault. Was _their_  fault. This battle cost them everything, and in the end, it could not have gained them anything.

“Take me away from this awful place,” he asks.

She slides her touch down, winding her fingers through his, and nods.

The dream fades.

He opens his eyes to the darkened walls of his apartment bedroom. Blinks, and blinks again, as the logic of the dream slips away, and the logic of his waking mind replaces it.

What the…?

The sleepy figure in bed next to him rolls over and pats at him through the blankets.

“Poor vhenan,” she murmurs, sleepily. “S’okay. The bagels’re okay.”

Suddenly he feels a lot more awake. He turns, and gapes at her.

How could she possibly…?

No. No, there’s no chance she could have shared a dream with him. She isn’t even a mage. It’s not possible; it’s probably just a coincidence. She talks about bagels a lot anyway. Probably dreams about them entirely on her own, too. 

Yes, that makes sense.

Good old sensible sense.

He stares at the ceiling for a pretty long time before he falls back to sleep.


	7. Childhood Memory

It’s _mesmerizing._

Pride stares at the bubbles in glass, just watching for a minute as they rise up. The liquid is dark pink. _Cream soda._  He’d wanted to try it ever since he overheard some of the kids in school talking about it. Well, that and a bunch of other things that aren’t really pre-approved for his nutritional benefit. Processed foods might as well be poison according to Mythal.

He thinks Mythal is probably right. This is a bad thing he’s doing. He shouldn’t have kept that five dollar bill he found on the sidewalk, and he shouldn’t have sneaked away, and he shouldn’t have gone into the candy shop, and he shouldn’t have bought that big bag of jelly beans, and he shouldn’t have eaten it all at once, and he shouldn’t have gotten the soda from the old-fashioned soda machine, and he shouldn’t be watching the bubbles, and he definitely shouldn’t drink it.

But it does.

And it goes up his nose and it fills his mouth with sweetness and tastes like how it looks; like pink and fizz and _happiness._

He loves it.


	8. Fretting

“I’m not dying,” she croaks, for what feels like the millionth time.

“I know,” Pride assures her, a little too hastily. “I am simply checking Web MD because I am curious!”

Lavellan sighs, crumpling another tissue into the pile, and looks up at where her boyfriend is sitting on the opposite side of the bed, frowning at his laptop. Half an hour ago she’d had to talk him out of taking her to the hospital just in case she had avian flu.

Reaching over, she pats at his knee. He’d been relatively relaxed and normal yesterday. But apparently cold symptoms lasting more than twenty-four-hours was enough to convince him that something perilous could be in play. Letting him look up her symptoms was a bad idea. 

It’s a _cold._

Of course the results that are anything other than ‘it’s a cold’ are distressing, they’re all _not_  colds. And utterly irrelevant, because that’s what she has.

She has to get him off this topic. But trying to talk him out of it hasn’t worked at all so far. It’s just seen the line between his brows get increasingly deep, while she curled up in a ball next to him and utterly failed to nap, because how could she nap when he’s being a giant wall of anxiety next to her?

She shifts, and a miserable, incoherent noise escapes her.

Pride looks over. One of his hands drops onto his head.

“Are you experiencing any joint pain?” he asks.

She sighs.

At least the hand feels nice.


	9. First Time (NSFW)

The first time they make love, Pride admits his lack of experience to her.

It seems like the courteous thing to do, really. A few fumbling kisses in highschool and the wealth of knowledge the internet has to offer aren’t really the same as actual experience, and for all that Haninan’s ‘helping’ mortifies him, the bit of advice he’d offered about being honest and keeping communication open had seemed… sensible. On balance, he’d rather admit the truth and go from there than try to keep it a secret, and risk injuring her in his ignorance.

“Are you telling me I’m your first?” she had asked him, after. She hadn’t looked surprised. A little bit breathless, maybe. But not surprised.

“Technically… yes,” he admitted.

After that she’d touched him so, so gently that he’d felt a little embarrassed by it. But also warmed. They’d gone slow. She’d ran her fingers over him and put her mouth on him, and shown him just how to touch her. The second time had been much the same, if a little less hesitant on both of their parts. She’d taken the lead and shown him what to do.

The third time, they go back to his apartment after a date at the Kirkwall Museum of Magic and Technology. They talk and laugh. A cold snap has kicked through the city, and turned the products of a recent rain storm to ice. It’s made the path outside her building a veritable skating rink. Pride takes one look at it, imagines her skidding across the mess of it and breaking her neck against a lamppost, and immediately decides she can stay with him.

“I survived walking over it this morning,” she tells him, with a huff.

“That does not mean you need to tempt fate again. Please,” he asks, catching her around the waist so she won’t give him a heart attack by trying to dash across it to prove a point. “Stay with me. Spend the whole weekend with me.”

As soon as the idea falls from his lips, he realizes what a good one it is. The whole weekend. Yes. Brilliant.

Apparently she also sees some appeal in the idea, too, because she scarcely puts up any further argument about it. He calls a cab to drive them to his apartment, and when they get inside, he makes them both cocoa and logs into her Netflix account on his laptop. It’s nice. Cozy. They snuggle with a couple of blankets on his couch, and settle on watching a documentary about krill. Which are really fascinating, in fact. She leans against him and shoves her hands under his shirt, and cuddles up to his shoulder.

When the documentary’s done they are both sleepy and warm. He washes the empty cocoa mugs while she goes to find something she can borrow to sleep in. He has a couple of spare toothbrushes, thankfully, but she should probably start keeping some things over here for the sake of convenience.

The thought makes him feel giddy.

That giddiness spreads into a different kind of warmth altogether when he walks into his bedroom and finds her in there, in an old pair of his pyjamas. Comfy grey pants she’s practically drowning in, and a worn t-shirt that’s been washed so many times that it is nearly transparent now.

He stops, and she looks at him and spreads her arms a little.

“This okay?” she asks.

Technically, some part of his brain knows that the clothes don’t really fit her and that it is nowhere near a ‘fashionable’ look. He has nicer clothes he could offer her. The rest of his brain is fully aware that this is irrelevant information. She looks… she… she is in his clothes, and he wants to touch her so badly, all of a sudden. He wants to feel her breasts through the thin fabric, and kiss her neck, and slip his hand underneath the waistband of those pants, and squeeze her close and just burrow his nose behind her ear and _breathe._

She is wearing his tattered old clothes and he wants to eat her up.

“Pride?” she asks, a little uncertainly.

“I always thought people were exaggerating about how attractive clothes sharing could be,” he says, swallowing. The heat is rushing down from his face and pooling right in his groin.

Realization dawns on her, and her own cheeks darken a bit. She smiles.

“Wanna have sex?” she asks.

He opens his mouth. Then he closes it again, and just nods.

She moves towards him, but he catches her up before she can even start, really. He does precisely what he’d been thinking of, kissing her neck and fondling her chest, feeling warm, soft flesh through the thin fabric of the shirt. He pulls her close and slides his hand beneath her waistband, and brushes his fingers over the soft skin on her backside. Her breath hitches.

“Let me,” he asks.

“Okay,” she agrees, easily.

His heart skips a beat at that. She knows he still has had barely any experience at this, but there is no worry at all in her voice. No hesitation.

She trusts him, he realizes. She has no real reason to trust his skill in this - they’ve been following her lead, so far - so she must trust _him._ Trust that he will not go too far or too recklessly, that he will pay attention to her and listen to her as they go.

 _“_ If I do it wrong, you stop me,” he insists, gently, moving his hands to her hips.

“Will do,” she assures him, and tilts her head to kiss him. He loves the way she kisses him. As if she cannot get enough of him, as if breath never tasted so sweet as when she plucks it from his lips. He wants to melt into her when she does that. Wants to carry her away.

Hmm.

He scoops his hands under her thighs, and picks her up. The kiss breaks off as she makes a surprised sound. She just tightens her grip on him, though, hanging onto his shoulders and squeezing her legs around him as he carries her the few feet to the bed. By the time he drops her onto his mattress, she’s laughing a little bit.

“Holy shit,” she says, gleefully.

He makes a mental note - picking her up is delightful. He should do it more often.

She cups his face and reels him in for another kiss, trapping him a moment with her arms folded behind his neck.  Not that he objects. But there are other things he wants to try and do with his mouth right now, so after a moment he pulls away, tapping her arm to get her to let go.

He cannot resist the opportunity to press more kisses to the soft skin of her neck, though. He pulls down the thin collar of her shirt to trail his kisses lower, savouring the feeling of her skin against his lips. His thumbs brush against her waist and she giggles, twisting her hips a little.

He smiles. With a spark of mischief he trails another light touch up her side. A sharp bark of laughter bursts out of her. She squirms and reaches for his hands, catching his wrists to stop him.

“Pride!” she protests.

“I love your laugh,” he tells her, because it’s true; and because there’s just something so _beautiful_  about seeing her smile while he touches her.

“Menace,” she says, with far too much warmth for it to feel like a reprimand. She draws one of his hands up to kiss his palm.

It makes him want to move higher again, and nuzzle her cheek, and let her wrap her legs around him and just… but he is on a mission, still. He licks his lips, and settles for just caressing the side of her face before he pulls his hands back, and slides further down. He catches the soft fabric of her pants as he does, and pulls it away with him.

Soft skin. Round hips. Strong thighs. He coaxes her legs apart, and just looks at her for a moment. The slopes and angles of her body, and the sight of her, the scent of her, makes all the want in him surge up. He moves his lips tentatively towards her, and ventures a gentle lick. He’s known people to describe this act as if it is a chore, or somehow deeply unpleasant. At the moment, he cannot fathom why. Her skin is warm, and she tastes just… sort of salty. Like sweat, really. Not pleasant or unpleasant in and of itself. But the tiny hitch in her breath and twitch of her hips, and the smooth, velvety soft texture of her skin here is… it is beautiful. He licks again, exploring her folds with his tongue. She inches herself closer to his mouth as he does, encouraging.

“Pride,” she breathes.

Sometimes she says his name the same way she kisses him. Like there is something infinitely perfect about it all. Like he is amazing, just for himself.

He gives in to her encouragement and moves closer, circling his tongue in her inviting warmth, before laving at the sensitive point. One of her hands tangles in his hair, her nails running across his scalp. He watches her when he can, and focuses on his task when he cannot, but it is hypnotizing either way. The _sounds_  that come out of her. The way her breath catches, and her fingers curl in his hair. The heady moan that floods out of her when he sucks at her, and brings up one of his hands to press his touch to her entrance. Her hips move towards him. Her breaths go ragged, and her other hand grips at the sheets.

He does not think he has ever been this aroused in his _life,_ and they have already had sex two times before.

He figures she is getting close when she starts to squeeze her thighs around the sides of his head. She keeps trying not to, he can tell, so he moves his free hand to help hold her back a little. Then he resumes his task with vigour, twisting his fingers in a way he knows she likes, and moving his tongue up to focus exclusively on her clit. His mouth is getting tired, but this is very, very much worth it, he decides, as she comes all in a rush, throwing her head back and calling his name.

He takes a moment to marvel at her, as her thighs tremble and she sucks in deep breaths.

Well.

…Wow.


	10. Clothes Shopping

Pride has a plan.

He is fairly sure it is a plan, anyway.

…The plan goes like this:

Lavellan needs some things she can keep over at his place, for when she’s staying with him (which should be frequently, he thinks, because her apartment is terrible and has _ice_  and _cracks in the walls)._

Pride can use this as a sufficient excuse, he thinks, to take her shopping. And buy her things. Nice things. Things that will, hopefully, keep her warm and fashionable and dry, and maybe make her think of him even when he’s not around. All he has to do is figure out the right way to phrase his suggestion so that it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to… buy her things.

He thinks about this in the morning, when he wakes up and finds her all snuggled into his blankets and pressed up against his chest, her nose buried in his pillow and his legs all tangled with his. They both have the day off, so he lets himself stay right where he is, listening to her breathe and pondering the matter of clothes and apartments and how long a person is supposed to wait before they ask their girlfriend to just move in with them.

The sun shifts a little while he’s thinking. Light scatters across the bed, and she blinks, sleepily. One of her hands shifts and pats him on the chest, like she’s affirming that he’s there. Then she moves, snaking it around him and cuddling into him a little more thoroughly. He feels a warm rush of affection, almost painful in its intensity, and puts his own arms around her. Then presses a kiss to her forehead.

“Good morning, vhenan,” he says.

She mumbled back something indecipherable. Her tone is pleased, though. She’s only half dressed from the activities of the night before, wearing his old shirt, the pyjama pants crumpled on the floor. He finds himself increasingly aware of his own lack of clothes as she shifts around, and her thigh brushes him from a new angle.

He thinks of the night before, and suddenly it feels much warmer than it had before.

 _You just had sex last night,_  he thinks sternly at himself. _Do not be insatiable!_

There’s some more shifting. Lavellan makes an inquiring sound, and it is possible insatiability is a new thing they’re both going to have to deal with, because the hand on his back slides considerably downwards. She cups his rear and squeezes, startling a sound out of him as his increasing hardness presses more firmly against her.

He swallows.

“Vhenan, if you keep that up, I will want to have sex again,” he feels it prudent to inform her.

She chuckles, and looks sleepily up at him.

“Good,” she says. “I already want to have sex again, unless there’s some reason not to. I kept dreaming about your mouth.”

Oh.

Said mouth waters, a bit. That had been…

“Could we do that again?” he asks.

Another laugh huffs out of her.

“You don’t have to twist my arm,” she assures him.

With a building anticipation of his own, he shoves the blankets aside, and kisses his way down her stomach. She’s all sleep-soft and pliant and warm. Both of her hands migrated into his hair as he settles between her legs again. Somehow it’s almost even better this time. He has no idea how it could possibly be, but that’s how it feels. She’s still languid and a little drowsy, and it makes it easy to set up a gentle pace. To just sort of nestle his mouth against her, and lick and explore her again, testing the sensitivity of new places, and pressing fingers and tongue to different angles. There is no hurry, not at all, not even with the growing press of his own arousal. He finds he likes teasing, he thinks. He likes listening to her breath speed up, and tiny moans slip from her lips, and feeling her hips jerk, and then moving on to see what other pleasurable spots he can find, or motions he can make. He likes drawing this out until his mouth is tired, and his fingers are, too, and her own grip has tightened in his hair and relaxed again many times over. Her chest heaving with breaths, her legs squeezing around him.

“Fuck, Pride,” she says.

Hmm. He glances at the bedside table.

“May I?” he asks.

She blinks, a little dazedly, and then reaches towards the drawer, and yanks it open. He’s the one who manages to climb up and grab one of the condoms, though. He likes it when she puts them on him. When she draws her hand or her lips across him, and slides it on, but this time he does it himself, eager and suddenly a little hasty.

He slows down when he goes to enter her, though. Gentle and careful, watching her face to make certain she does grimace or wince or do anything to hint that he’s hurting her. She pushes towards him, though, and when she bites her lip it’s from pleasure, not pain. She grasps his shoulders as he rolls his hips forward. He barely starts moving before she comes, already hanging at the edge, clenching tight around him. He makes himself stop, but she pats at his shoulder, and presses her hips towards him, still.

“Keep going,” she tells him.

His restraint is already pretty frayed; she does not need to tell him twice.

He tries to keep it gentle, but she is so soft and it’s so easy to move in her right now that before long he’s going quickly instead, gripping her hips and watching her face, caught up in the warmth all around him, and the hot pleasure surging up him. When he comes in a crashing wave, he almost doesn’t want it to be over; he manages a few more thrusts, and at the very least gets her to come again.

But it isn’t the end of it, not really. She pulls him beside her and brushes his face, and kisses him, all full of affection. The sex is done but this is wonderful too, he thinks. Just having her close. Sated and relaxed. She is beautiful in so many ways. She is beautiful when she is laughing, and smiling, and when she is standing behind a shop counter, and walking with her hand in his, and when she is wearing his clothes, or wearing her clothes. When she is gasping his name with pleasure, or pressing kisses to his lips, or just like this; when she is lying next to him, breathing deep and brushing her fingers across his forehead.

“I kind of want to just stay in bed with you all day,” she tells him.

That would be… definitely an experience worth having, he thinks.

But there is a plan to consider.

“You need things,” he blurts.

…He perhaps should have waited a little longer to attempt the beginning of this delicate discussion.

She waves a hand.

“If we don’t get out of bed all day, I shouldn’t need too many,” she reasons.

“You are staying the entire weekend, though,” he points out. “We should go and pick some things up. Then we can come back here and spend as much time as we like doing all sorts of things.”

She smiles.

“All sorts of things?”

Her voice is low and rich, just a tiny bit rough from sleep and sex. He has to fight off another surge of interest from the lower areas of his anatomy.

“All sorts. After,” he promises.

She sighs. But the smile stays firmly in place, too.

“I guess that’s… reasonable,” she concedes, with obvious reluctance.

It works, though. He reminds himself that this a good thing as they finally get out of bed. And then reminds himself again as he watches her stretch. The shirt she’s wearing rides up, sliding gently over the curve of her backside, and he has to fight the urge to just reach over and…

No.

He is going to take her _out._  Like a good, civilized lover who does not spend all of their time ravishing their partner. It is a challenge to remember this, though, as they both get ready, and he keeps finding everything she does just… just… He needs to stop watching her, is what. The little hip-shimmy she does when she pulls her pants back on makes him want to take them straight off of her again.

At least he doesn’t get untoward thoughts while she’s brushing her teeth. That’s something.

Though when she smiles at him afterwards, his thoughts seem to go flying right out of his head, and all he can focus on is the sound she made when he brushed his fingers against her and she giggled and twisted, breathless and…

…And he really needs to get a hold of himself.

“Your hair’s a mess, vhenan,” she tells him, brushing her fingers over it.

A glance in the mirror confirms - yes. His hair is a mess. Not even ‘pleasantly dishevelled’, that is just a complete disaster.

“Want me to help you with it?” she offers.

Her fingers on his scalp…

“Yes,” he says, ruefully. “But if I let you, I am afraid we will never get out of the door.”

She leans in a little closer, a playful spark in her eye.

“Would that be so bad?” she wonders.

He cannot help it. He presses forward, and kisses her again. Almost loses himself in it until he manages to pull back. Their lips actually make a tiny smacking sound in the process.

“I am buying you breakfast,” he insists. _And other things._

A laugh bubbles up out of her, but she relents, and lets him finish getting ready.

Eventually, he opts to call Haninan and see if he can give them a ride into town. He’d prefer a bit more… privacy, but Haninan’s car would be easier for transporting packages, and he suspects he might be able to let her buy him more things if she cannot argue about carrying them all back to the apartment afterwards.

When she sees the car outside the building, she only raises an eyebrow.

“Haninan’s coming to breakfast with us?” she asks.

“Haninan is providing transportation,” he confirms. And likely unwanted commentary. Pride only hopes that the man cannot look at them and somehow immediately figure out that they had sex last night. No, wait, that’s probably a futile hope. He can hope that Haninan will not look at them and then somehow figure out _exactly what sex acts_  they committed last night.

And then ask them about it.

Please, please do not let him ask them about it.

Or offer tips.

He holds out hope until they get into the man’s car, and he _beams_  at them through the rearview mirror. He’s wearing his hideous flannel jacket and one of his ‘#1 Dad’ shirts. This one has a giant pink heart on it.

“Good morning!” Haninan says.

“I will buy you whatever you want for breakfast if you do not speak,” Pride immediately offers.

“You are going to buy me breakfast anyway, as compensation for playing chauffeur,” Haninan replies. Which is true. Damn him.

“Good morning, Haninan. I hope we aren’t interrupting your weekend too much,” Lavellan says.

“I was going to spend the morning reading passive-aggressive mail from my son’s wife’s lawyers, but this is much more pleasant,” Haninan assures them. “Where are we having breakfast? Not either of your shops, you eat enough of that food as it is. The Hanged Man has a good spread. Though I suspect Pride has already eaten this morning.”

What…? How did he know that?! How could he possibly, _possibly_  know that?

“Pride is fantastic. Let’s go to the Hanged Man,” Lavellan says, giving Haninan an look that could best be described as ‘quelling’. Pride blinks, somewhat impressed as the older elf actually seems to withdraw from his teasing, and pulls out of the building’s parking lot.

His girlfriend is amazing.

The Hanged Man is fairly busy, but not enough to make the atmosphere unpleasantly crowded. Varric waves at them when they come in, but disappears not long after with a look on his face that heavily implies he is the midst of creative fervour. Haninan actually behaves himself rather well over breakfast, though he attributes most of that to Lavellan shutting down his attempts to tease, though.

At the end of the meal, the older elf still looks like the cat who caught the canary, though. To Pride’s surprise he snatches up the bill before either he or Lavellan can fight over it.

“I thought I was buying you breakfast.”

“That was a joke,” Haninan tells him. “You are going to be spending enough money today.”

How does he know these things? _How?_

“No he isn’t. I’m kidnapping him back to bed as soon as we swing by my place to pick up some stuff,” Lavellan counters. Which makes him flush for multiple reasons.

Pride clears his throat.

“The ice rink is very likely still out front of your ‘apartment building’, given the maintenance standards of the place. It would be more prudent to simply visit a shop and acquire some things there,” he asserts.

Yes, good.

Lavellan raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m not buying a bunch of new stuff. I can make it just fine across the ‘ice rink’,” she says.

“Possibly,” he replies. “But since it is my anxiety over the matter that is causing this whole inconvenience, it is only fair that I pay for the expense. It is an investment in peace of mind, really.”

“You sound like an insurance salesman,” Haninan tells him, cheerily.

“No, nuh-uh,” Lavellan says, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms. Not a good sign. 

“It all seems very reasonable to me,” Pride suggests.

“You can hold my hand across the ice rink if you’re worried. But I don’t need you buying me fancy stuff,” she says.

“It would not need to be fancy! I never said it would be fancy,” he argues.

She gives him a sceptical look.

“So we’re going to the thrift store, then?” she asks.

He makes a face.

Immediately, she points at him.

“See?” she says. “Of course it would be fancy! You’re trying to buy me fancy clothes!”

“The horror!” Haninan exclaims, clapping a hand over his heart.

“You shush,” Lavellan tells him.

“No, Haninan has a point,” Pride says. He then immediately winces at the delighted look Haninan gives him. But he soldiers on. “Why should I not buy you a few things? What is so bad about it?”

“It isn’t _bad_ ,” Lavellan replies. “It’s just unnecessary. I don’t need new things, I don’t even particularly want them, and I don’t want you to be getting me stuff all the time. I’m perfectly capable of clothing myself.”

“But I really, really want to buy you things,” Pride confesses. 

He does, too. Not for the sake of expressing his affection through commercial goods, even, though that certainly has a strong precedent in his family. But because he wants her to _have_  things.

Lavellan takes a long look at him, and then lets out a sigh that is equal parts fondness and frustration.

“Pride-”

“Wishes!” he blurts. An apartment covered in heather. Lavellan opens her mouth, and closes it, and then levels a finger at him.

“That’s cheating!” she tells him.

“I am willing to cheat,” he admits. 

She wavers, looking at him, clearly indecisive but leaning towards relenting. He holds his breath, and when she throws her hands up, a grin spreads across his face. He is going to get her new clothes! Nice clothes! _Warm_  clothes!

“But!” she says, interrupting his internal celebrations. “We _are_  going to the thrift store.”

His face falls.

Haninan, the horrible traitor, snickers.

“What a fun learning experience,” the man enthuses.

Pride tries on his best pleading look. Not that he has anything against thrift stores - he has, in fact, never been in one - but he wants to buy her _nice_  things.

Lavellan gives him a long look.

“The thrift store… and a lingerie shop,” she decides.

His brain immediately short circuits.

Across the table, Haninan throws his head back, and laughs.


	11. The Sleaziest of Elves

“You know,” the guy standing at Lavellan’s counter says, leaning forward in a way that makes every hackle on the back of her neck stand up. “You’d probably be really pretty if you wore a bit more make-up.”

She takes a moment, because part of her can’t believe that someone actually walked into her bagel shop, came up to her counter, and decided _that_  was an appropriate line to drop in her lap. She’s had people hit on her before, but she’s rarely seen someone pick a comment straight out of The Asshole’s Guide to Blatant Manipulation Playbook, Chapter One.

“Sure, buddy. So can I get you a bagel?” she settles on replying, raising an eyebrow.

The man presses a hand to his chest.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you _aren’t_  pretty without make-up,” he says. “It only struck me, just as I came in through the door, that you were one-step removed from someone who could show up on a magazine cover. I mean, in all fairness, you can’t just do that to me. Here I am expecting to walk in and see some sad, dowdy old shop owner behind the counter. Not a pretty hire straight out of highschool,” he says.

Lavellan’s eyebrow remains firmly upwards. It’s been a fair while since she was anywhere near highschool aged, and if this guy was hoping his apparent eagerness to hit on someone he took for being that young would come across _well,_ he’s sorely mistaken. Among other things.

“The poppyseed muffins are fresh,” she informs him. “Vegan, too.”

He makes a face.

“Do they tell you to push that crap just to get it off of the shelves?” he asks.

She stares at him, and mentally gives him another three minutes to place an order, before she just kicks him out.

The door opens and one of her regulars comes in, then, and mercifully the man just orders a standard bagel with cream cheese. He takes it to go, but not before making a passing comment on her being cold and probably looking much prettier if she smiled more, too.

She graces Oghren with her best smile, then, as he makes his way blearily up towards the counter, and gets him his coffee and cheese bagel with ham before he even opens his mouth to ask.

The incident sort of falls into the sidelines of her day’s activities, then. By the time she’s walking home with Pride, she’s almost forgotten it. Though she does feel a little extra surge of happiness when he leans in to kiss her, his lips warm and eager, no trace of duplicity in his attentions or affections. It’s stupid, she knows, to feel badly over the blatant manipulation tactics of an utter stranger trying to worm his way into her pants.

But she still lets herself take a bit of reassurance, in that Pride’s obviously not thinking of ways she could ‘improve’ herself for him.

When they get to his apartment, he starts asking about dinner, and she starts pulling him intently towards the bedroom. A question in her eyes.

His cheeks flush, and he opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, before clearing his throat and twining his fingers with hers.

“Oh,” he says. “Right now?”

“Unless you’re not in the mood,” she replies. Maybe he’s hungry, or maybe he’s just not into it right now. But that thought vanishes as he shakes his head, and grins, and takes a few quick steps forward to swoop in on her. His hands slide down her back, and hers sneak up under his shirt. They back their way into the bedroom as she dips her fingers towards the waistband of his pants, and his kisses trail down her jaw, to the side of her neck.

His hand brushes a ticklish corner of her waist, and she snorts and bites off a reflexive giggle. It makes Pride’s gaze go all soft and fond, and sets the tone for the rest of it, really. She waggles her eyebrows playfully as she peels off his shirt; he grins and brushes his fingers ‘accidentally’ over her ribs as he takes off hers.

And then he goes it again when he leans in for a kiss. Light, brushing fingers that make her shiver and squirm and laugh onto his lips. He’s grinning as she retaliates, and pushes him back onto the bed. Catching his hands as she straddles him.

“You’re all mischief,” she accuses. 

He looks up at her, utterly unrepentant. Admiring. She feels her skin heat wherever his eyes seem to land on it.

“You bring out the best in me,” he tells her, and as she’s busily trying to get his pants open, then, he catches her up and rolls them both over. Pinning her to the bed as he kisses her breathless.

By the time they’re done, she’s completely forgotten about the morning. Any lingering crawling to her skin has been chased away by long-fingered hands she adores. She holds onto them in the aftermath. Running her own carefully up and down the digits. Finding soft little freckles hiding between Pride’s knuckles, and kissing them when she does.

Pride trails lazy kisses across her shoulders.

“You… like my freckles,” he says.

That might be an understatement, she thinks. But there’s a note in his voice that she doesn’t like. It’s not a charmed observation, or self-satisfied one, even. There’s a wavering note of insecurity in his voice. Just beneath all the layers of affection and contentment.

Well.

She can’t have _that._

“I’m a total sucker for your freckles, vhenan,” she tells him, shifting around and letting go of his hand so she can face him. She lets her gaze trail over the flush of his cheeks. The way it darkens his endearing, tiny little spots. She feels a brief surge of embarrassment, but soldiers past it, because if he’s got any doubts on _this_  front then she should maybe clear them up in a hurry. And today, after this morning, she’s not inclined to beat around the bush. “I love them. I love that some of them are so faint that I can only see them up close. I love that I can kiss them, and count them while you’re sleeping. You have a little one, just here, on the bridge of your nose, that I adore,” she says, and leans forward to press a kiss over top of it. And several others, incidentally.

Pride’s blush darkens.

“I like the ones down here, too,” she tells him, brushing a hand across his abdomen. Then she trails it over his hip, and up along his back. “I like the freckles on your shoulders.” She lets her hand move downward, and pulls him closer as she cups his backside. “And I _love_  the ones right here. Especially the bigger one, right where your buttcheek dimples.”

His face goes _flaming_  as she runs her thumb over top of the freckle in question.

“I like the dimples, too. Just in case you were wondering,” she says, and kisses the one on his chin for emphasis.

Pride’s own hands slip, warm and easy, around her.

“I suspected,” he says.

She kisses a freckle under his jaw.

“But you had some doubts?” she suggests.

“Silly ones. A man came into the shop at lunch, and made some comments. _You would be quite fetching if you did something about those freckles,”_ he says, and she stills.

No.

…That _asshole._

“If that fucker sets foot in my shop again, I’m going to tear him a new one,” she says. “That piece of shit. How dare he? What the hell even is that? Did he tell you to put make-up on them? I’ll kill him. That fucker.”

Pride looks at her in some bafflement.

“You… know him?” he asks. “How could you? I didn’t even tell you anything about him.”

She kisses some more of his freckles, and he shifts. That beautiful, brief refractory period of his is probably letting up, and they’re still all naked and tangled and sweaty, but she’s just going to keep on kissing his freckles now anyway.

And if that means they spend the whole evening having sex, well. She’ll just have to survive.

“It’s an educated guess,” she admits. “Some tool came into my shop at breakfast and told me I’d look _much_  prettier if I wore more make-up.”

Pride stiffens.

“… _What?”_

“That was pretty much my reaction.”

He has freckles on his shoulders. Little tiny pale brown ones, of the variety that tend to be invisible until she gets up close. They deserve kisses, too, really. Their aesthetic appeal has been brought into question by an idiot, for no good reason at all.

It seems she’s not the only one on a mission now, though, as Pride wriggles a bit and manages to get both of his hands to her face. Coaxing her back as he frames it, for a moment, and then moves in to kiss her. Very, very slowly. Just a soft brush of lips, at first, before they both deepen it. After a few moments he lets out a little huff of breath, and his mouth slides towards the corner of hers. Then up her cheek, and across the bridge of her nose.

“There is no room for improvement,” he tells her. “You are perfect.”

Her lips quirk; both at his compliment, and its effectiveness.

Damn but she does adore him.

“Smooth-talker,” she accuses, and he hums against her cheek. His hips angle a little more urgently against her.

“I mean it,” he assures her.

“That’s why it _works_  when you do it,” she replies, and with a little grin, takes advantage of his distraction to roll him onto his back and straddle him again. She keeps him beneath her this time, and dutifully sets about reminding the freckles on his stomach of her own honest admiration.

By the time they’ve finished reassuring one another, it’s past seven. They’re both happy and sated and utterly ravenous. Neither of them feel up to cooking, so Pride goes and fetches a handful of take-out menus from a drawer in the kitchen, and Lavellan curls up on the couch in one of his shirts. She sets up her laptop and puts on some mindless popcorn flick, and then sits with Pride and flips through the menu’s.

“I have not tried this place before,” Pride says, and hands her the menu for a Rivaini-style grill house. Their delivery section looks good, so they poke around and pick a few things, ordering a bit more than usual because both of them are hungry and neither of them are feeling particularly restrained at the moment.

“Your hair’s a mess,” she points out to him, after a minute. Amused and a little self-satisfied, given that her fingers are largely responsible for it. Pride tilts his eyes upwards, as if he could actually _see_  the mess on the top of his head, and she grins at him.

“Come here,” she says.

Pride obligingly slides off the couch to come and sit in front of her. One of his hands rubs in idly strokes across her knee as she sets about fixing some of the mess, untying it and smoothing out strands, and then loosely braising them into something that screams ‘I have just been rolling around in bed with my girlfriend’ a _little_  less.

She keeps getting distracted with kissing the tips of his ears, though.

She’s barely gotten it in order when he has to buzz the delivery guy up. Something about the voice on the intercom bugs her, but it’s not until Pride actually answers the door that it clicks.

“Well, well,” the jerk from this morning says. “It must be fate! Imagine us running into one another again.”

Lavellan’s still on the couch, and all she can see is Pride and part of the door. But she gets up, absolutely seething all at once.

“There. Leave,” Pride says, as she stalks over to him.

“What, not even a tip from my fair…” 

The voice trails off, as Lavellan moves in to confirm that, yes, this is the sleazeball who hit on her this morning. And presumably the same guy who insulted Pride’s freckles, too. His eyes widen a bit as he sees her, and then his gaze drops down to her bare legs, and she remembers that’s she’s still only wearing an over-sized shirt.

“Alright, now I _know_  it must be fate,” the asshole says, leering. Pride follows the direction of his gaze, and then quickly moves to block the guy’s view of her.

“I paid. Now leave,” he repeats, trying to close the door; but their order is bulky, and his hands are full. The awkward elbow he tries to shove into the door is thwarted by the presumptuous asshole on the threshold _catching it,_  and Lavellan feels new heights of disgust for him as she moves to help.

“Now, now. Let’s not be hasty. You can’t simply dangle this in front of me and expect me to back out. The two beautiful blossoms of the day, _together._  And clearly… enjoying one another’s company. Is there room in this party for a third player?” the delivery guy asks.

Pride glares and looks like he’s about two seconds away from throwing their piping-hot dinner at the asshole’s face.

Lavellan moves up beside him, and makes do with slamming the door on his hand instead.

It’s not hard enough to break anything, she doesn’t think. But the guy lets out a truly satisfying shriek, struggling for a moment to get his hand out of the jam as she holds it in place. Pride hesitates, but then seems to decide the best thing for him to do is get his own hands free, and moves to put their order down on the kitchen counter.

“Help!” the asshole shrieks.

She gives it another moment, before letting up on the door just enough that he can snatch his hand back. He does, and she hears him stumble back into the hall as she closes it properly.

And locks it.

It suddenly occurs to her that this slimeball knows where Pride lives, now.

Fuck.

She’s not going to be able to leave him alone in his apartment for a while. Not comfortably, anyway. She’s already concocting excuses to get him to stay at hers more when he walks over and checks the door, and then sweeps his arms around her.

“I am sorry,” he says.

“What are you sorry for?” she demands. “You didn’t know that asshole would come ogle you.”

“He ogled _you,”_  Pride snaps, sounding aghast. “I should have gotten rid of him more quickly.”

She has to snort at that.

“You all but threw him on his ass the second you opened the door,” she points out.

The delivery smells good, anyway. And she doubts, even given their delivery guy’s sleazy atmosphere, that he messed with their food when he couldn’t have known where he was taking it before Pride opened the door. After a few more minutes of hugging and reassurance, she goes to unpack it, while Pride insists on calling the restaurant back and complaining about their choice of employees.

Should be simple enough to get him to stay at her place, she thinks. If it comes to it, she can just tell him she’s scared.

She doesn’t actually have to specify _who for._

With a quiet, satisfied nod, she starts opening the cartons, and makes a mental note to talk to a few people about this asshole delivery guy.

This is Kirkwall, after all.


End file.
